The entire premise of this game is basically summed up in its own title; Horror in the Asylum. It's a horror game, and it takes place in the overused setting of a decrepit mental institution. Taking a look at the trailer and screenshots on the store page immediately brings to light that this game is essentially an asset flip; anyone who has played a decent number of these Unity Personal Edition indie cash-grabs will notice that. While that doesn't necessarily indicate that the game itself will be garbage, more often than not, it will be.
In this case, that's exactly what Horror in the Asylum is; cash-grab garbage that tries too hard to be difficult, and offers little to no scare value while creating near impossible situations. You wake up in a dark mental institution, read a couple of notes that talk about taking prescribed medication, pick a few locks, and proceed to solving overly complex puzzles while avoiding medieval skeletons. There's no handholding here, which would be fine if even the basics of the HUD were explained; for instance, what does that "risk" indicator in the top left corner really do? It can be low even when enemies are nearby, and high when no danger is present. It just doesn't make any sense. There's also an annoying dual-control layout shown no matter if you're playing with a KB+M set up, or an Xbox controller.
Be forewarned that there are absolutely no save files or checkpoints here; if you die, you start from the very beginning. This is the "difficulty" factor of Horror in the Asylum, and it makes the entire game one big trial-and-error mission. The only real foes in the game are patrolling skeletons with bad AI, but when they see you they'll chase you down and one-hit kill you if you do not run away quick, or far, enough. In fact, every death is a one-hit kill, and most of them are due events that you have absolutely no way of anticipating, such as a random killer insect hidden in some weird location that you accidentally bump in to; avoidable, though, if you know to have your flashlight off when you get there, but this isn't explained anywhere.
The controls are a beast entirely their own, and they're terrible. The mouse/joystick sensitivity is excruciatingly low, with no way to be changed, and the controller mapping is just god awful. There's no way to rebind the button mapping, whether it be for KB+M or controller layouts. The music is repetitious, the level layouts are boring, there's no real story, the "challenge" is faux and made up by removing any and all save features, and overall the only thing that Horror in the Asylum has going for it is the fact that it does have decent optimization. If you feel like punishing yourself, do so without torturing your wallet and grab this one on sale for a buck or less; otherwise, avoid it entirely.
[h1]Rating: [b]0.5/5.0[/b] - Abysmal, avoid it like the plague.[/h1]
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